1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a method for selecting a suitable coating door jig depending on a kind of automobile to be coated and a positioning door jig used for this purpose. The present invention also relates to a coating door jig selected by this method. The coating door jig is temporarily connected between a door opening at a side of a vehicle body to be coated and a slide door so as to enable forward and rearward movement of the slide door for opening and closing the door opening.
2. Prior art
When coating a vehicle body with slide doors, coating door jigs are used for temporarily connecting the slide doors to the vehicle body. The slide doors and the vehicle body are coated at one time so as to prevent the appearance of different color shades.
FIG. 7 is a sectional view showing a door opening H provided at a side of a vehicle body. A slide door D is connected to the door opening H by a conventional coating door jig K. The conventional coating door jig K connects one end D1 of the slide door D and an edge H1 of the door opening H. Here, the conventional coating door jig K shown in the solid line supports the slide door D at its closed position, where the slide door D is parallel to the side of the vehicle body, and the conventional coating door jig K shown in phantom supports the slide door D at its open position, where the other end D2 of the slide door D is away from the side of the vehicle body.
Such conventional coating door jig K comprises a hinge bracket K1 and a hinge arm K2 connected by a pin K3. The hinge bracket K1 is fixed to a center pillar P of the vehicle body through a bolt K4, and the hinge arm K2 is fixed to the front surface of the slide door D through a bolt K5, thereby pivotably supporting the slide door D with regard to the center pillar P of the vehicle body.
With the use of such conventional coating door jig K, a slide door D is temporarily connected to a side of a vehicle body at a certain position. However, since this connecting position differs depending on a kind or a shape of automobile, shape and size of a conventional door jig K should be considered so as to correspond to the vehicle body to be coated.
For this reason, simulation is carried out based on the design drawings of the automobile so as to select the most suitable conventional door jig K.
In the conventional coating door jig K, however, fine adjustment is required in the most cases when it is temporarily connected to the vehicle body. This is because size and shape of the conventional door jig K are specified by previous simulating. Further, fine adjustment of the conventional door jig K is tedious and time-consuming. Therefore, if the conventional coating door jig K is not applicable to the slide door, it may be replaced to another coating door jig K.
Replacement with another coating door jig K results in that a new set of coating door jigs K may be required since a number of coating door jigs K are used for each kind of automobiles to be coated. This is inconvenient and costly.
As shown in FIG. 7, the conventional coating door jig K is connected to the door opening H so that one end D1 of the slide door D is spaced apart from the opposing edge H1 of the door opening H. This is for preventing the end D1 of the slide door D from contacting with the edge H1 of the door opening H when opening and closing the slide door D. To this end, the other end D2 of the slide door D overlaps the vehicle body (OL in FIG. 7), and the slide door D is not positioned flush with the vehicle body when it is closed. The overlap OL causes a difference in distance between a spray gun for the coating operation and the slide door D, which leads to shading of color or incomplete coating at the shade under the overlapping slide door D when coating the vehicle body. This results in deteriorated coating quality of the finished vehicle body.